ALMS FOR THE ARCHCONFRATERNITY OF DEATH
[ARCICONFRATERNITA DELLA MORTE.]
Pia unione aggregata all’Arciconfraternita della Morte in Ferrara.
Ferrara, 181[7].
10 part-printed receipts (c. 150 x 105 mm); each with woodcut skull and crossbones at head (see below); variable spotting and toning, a few chips at edges, light central vertical creases from folding; 9 of 10 signed ‘Bianchini’, versos inscribed ‘S. Saracco Csa Rosa’, 2 dated and 2 with address ‘Borgonuovo'.
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Pia unione aggregata all’Arciconfraternita della Morte in Ferrara.
Ten unrecorded, part-printed receipts recording the monthly donations of alms to the newly reestablished Arciconfraternita della Morte in Ferrara by the Countess Rosa Saracco Riminaldi.
The Arciconfraternita della Morte was active in Ferrara as early as the fourteenth century, formally established as an archconfraternity in the late sixteenth century, and became affiliated with the city’s Accademia della Morte, of which the composer Giovanni Battista Bassani was maestro di cappella from 1683. The archconfraternity was subsequently suppressed under Napoleonic rule and would only be reestablished at the church of San Cristoforo alla Certosa in August 1816, following a mandate from Pope Pius VII.
A mere five months after the archconfraternity was reinstated, Countess Rosa Saracco Riminaldi (née Canonici, from 1839 Saracco Riminaldi Giglioli) starts the year with a donation of sixty baiocchi to cover January, February, and March 1817, followed by monthly donations of twenty baiocchi on the last week of March, April, May, June, July, September, October, and November, her final donation made on Christmas Day. The marquis Ferdinando Canonici (likely a relative of Rosa’s) was from 1819 to 1873 the head of a long-term project to restore the church – perhaps making use of the funds donated here. The countess apparently remained dedicated to charitable endeavours throughout her life: in 1846 she was, with her friend Luisa Recalchi Grillenzoni and some fifteen other women, the co-founder of the Scaldatoio, a soup-kitchen-cum-nursery for underprivileged boys and girls aged three to seven who had been living on the streets of Ferrara.
We are unable to trace any other examples of receipts recording alms for the Arciconfraternita della Morte.
